[kevint]

Hey Shavers. True I've had Japanese razors on the brain lately.... with the little tamahagane talk going on etc. I thought to cast my steely gaze upon other razors of the Orient.
(I have seen a few Chinese razors on ebay.)
This was a culture that developed steel technology very very early.

Then there is the middle east, Persia et al with their famous damascus. aka wootz. there is an ancient steel of mythic proportions... swords that could cut a falling silk scarf and all that story telling.

Does anyone follow archeology close enough to have any info on the barbering tools and habits of these ancients?

[joke1176]

hooo!!!!1!1!! this ought to get interesting.

[Detach]

I too am very interested! I hope someone here knows!

[Philadelph]

I've seen antique "chinese razors" on eBay. They usually go for like $10 lol. Same as THIS. Anyway, that's pretty much all I've got.

[Russel Baldridge]

I don't have any personal experience with Wootz, but I remember reading an excellently researched and authored article on it where they claimed Wootz was indeed a good steel, but not a wonder steel and very different from our current varieties.

The big difference (says the article) is that Wootz is a soft steel that binds together many extremely hard carbides. It isn't heat treated as regular steel is, so it's structure can be much more segregated. The author claimed that the carbides were in fact hard enough to scratch glass, but that the overall Wootz blade would have been somewhat dull in comparison to modern steels. They claim that the advantage Wootz had (for swords etc.) was that the carbide grains acted like saw teeth, cutting through flesh and remaining sharp for long periods of time while the soft "binder" steel was shock absorbing and tough. It was said to have been great for combat swords but not so much for more delicate tools.

I'd like nothing more than to have the means to play around with the stuff some day, but for now internet research is the best I've got.

[JimmyH-AD]

Here is what the Wiki has on Damascus and down page Wootz. I seem to recall a thread saying that Joe Chandler was doing some sort of Wootz Damascus ?

[Kees]

Wootz and damascus are two entirely different steels. Damascus is pattern-forged while wootz has the pattern without hamering layer upon layer.

[PonderingTurtle]

Originally Posted by Kees

Wootz and damascus are two entirely different steels. Damascus is pattern-forged while wootz has the pattern without hamering layer upon layer.

While true it is not exactly that simple. This is because orrigionaly damascus steel was wootz, and modern pattern welded steels are from an attempt to replicate the visual effect of wootz.

[JimmyH-AD]

Originally Posted by Kees

Wootz and damascus are two entirely different steels. Damascus is pattern-forged while wootz has the pattern without hamering layer upon layer.

Not arguing the point but in the Wiki definition for Damascus they have a portion devoted to Wootz. They also have a separate definition for Wootz but it covers the same ground.

[Whiggamore]

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

I don't have any personal experience with Wootz, but I remember reading an excellently researched and authored article on it where they claimed Wootz was indeed a good steel, but not a wonder steel and very different from our current varieties.

The big difference (says the article) is that Wootz is a soft steel that binds together many extremely hard carbides. It isn't heat treated as regular steel is, so it's structure can be much more segregated. The author claimed that the carbides were in fact hard enough to scratch glass, but that the overall Wootz blade would have been somewhat dull in comparison to modern steels. They claim that the advantage Wootz had (for swords etc.) was that the carbide grains acted like saw teeth, cutting through flesh and remaining sharp for long periods of time while the soft "binder" steel was shock absorbing and tough. It was said to have been great for combat swords but not so much for more delicate tools.

I'd like nothing more than to have the means to play around with the stuff some day, but for now internet research is the best I've got.

Mr. Baldridge, which article is this? Is it online?

My understanding of Wootz Damascus steel comes mainly from The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades by Verhoeven, Pendray, and Dauksch. More Wootz links can be found here, I found it a good place to start my studies. Googling the names of any of the makers or researchers in this field, or the Central Asian name for Wootz, Bulat, also yield a large number of resources. If anybody is interested, that is.

Based on my limited knowledge, I think Wootz Damascus steel would be a superior steel for a cut throat razor as would any steel with carbides, like Silver steel. The ancient Wootz swords were soft but swords often are. I read about a Russian or Ukrainian smith that was hardening Bulat knives he made out of his own stainless Bulat into the high 50s and low 60s. The carbides are also very hard, especially the vanadium carbides so responsible for the patterning. So hard, as a matter of fact, that they can't be properly measured for their Rockwell hardness. Not only could a Wootz blade be hard but I believe that honing and the carbides would result in "teeth on teeth" edge, like a shark's tooth, that slice the hairs like a knife with larger serrations cuts rope. What is the mechanism that is cutting the hair, otherwise? It isn't being split at an atomic level, steel can't be sharpened so sharp.

If my little theory about carbides is true, I wonder what size of teeth is optimum for most hair? I wonder what this could mean for the very fine hones. If you need the teeth to be of a certain size, rather than as small as possible, it might be more advantageous to stop honing at 12K? Lots of questions only a microscope can answer.

[randydance062449]

Perhaps either Mike Blue or Joe Chandler will chime in here. They both have experience with Wootz and pattern welded damascus steel.

[Mike Blue]

Chandler Wootz

I don't remember if I posted any info about CATRA testing. But, wootz is a very interesting material. Ten years ago or longer a machine was invented in the UK that would put a known force into an edge to test cutting performance. Down force, slicing forces etc could all be measured. Probably more inventive was the development of a graded abrasive paper that would provide a known quantity of resistance and wear. The machine pushes straight down into the paper and then slices. Not a shaving motion.

In the hardened state, at this time, 52100 outperformed all other steels. That steel has been made famous as ball bearing steel. It's quite good, but is particular about how it's heat treated. When it's done well, it's a very good material. Some wootz was compared to this steel. The wootz was from Alfred Pendray and John Verhoeven's labs/shops. In the hardened state, the wootz was slightly inferior to the 52100. Where it got strange was that in the UN-hardened state, wootz out cut everything else by a wide margin.

As to razors, the razor doesn't cut on the side of the bevel, it cuts at the edge. Where the wootz advantage of hard carbide in a soft pearlite matrix takes over is the abrasion resistance along the sides of the edge like in the CATRA testing. You don't need a razor edge to keep cutting successfully, when all those retained carbides are hanging out like saw teeth in that type of cutting action. So the wootz intuitively looks good as a cutting instrument in one form but I don't think it readily translates to razors that way. There is an experiment of sorts under way even now though.

Personally, the razor in wootz I've shaved with, is as good as any steel. And these two examples I know of are hardened and the edges highly polished/honed. I think any advantage of wootz maybe lost compared to any other good steel treated the same.

John Verhoeven provides the most metallurgically sound discussion of ancient wootz. That material is not stainless. I would argue that it maybe better to call any modern stainless reproduction something like stainless crucible steel rather than wootz. I don't have any control of how someone wants to market something they've done, but it's imprecise at the very least. Stainless steel did not exist in the days when wootz was common. A lot of smelted materials can be pushed to develop some of the appearance features of wootz dendrites, but if it's not the same chemistry, it's hard to argue that it is wootz.

I think you were referring to Achim Wirtz, a fine smith. Some of his work has been printed on the net in Russian. He's certainly experimented with a number of different steel types and their manufacture.

[Kees]

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

I think you were referring to Achim Wirtz, a fine smith. Some of his work has been printed on the net in Russian. He's certainly experimented with a number of different steel types and their manufacture.

Are you referring to bulat here?

For those of us not familiar with it: Bulat steel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mike Blue]

Originally Posted by Kees

Are you referring to bulat here?

To some degree I can't avoid comparison. There is not enough evidence to completely separate bulat, pulad, wootz (all other names for the same stuff) from each other. It may wind up being only a semantic difference (nomenclature). Either way it's a steel manufactured in a crucible. There are a lot of things that can be manipulated in the crucible. Without knowing that exact recipe, it's difficult for me to comment on what Achim's doing. He may well be using an Eastern method, where in the US, we'd tend to follow the documents we have available through John and Alfred (western). Until I have a chance to talk to him and watch, I will remain respectfully and eagerly curious. All I see in the video is forging something that could be any steel. If he says it's stainless bulat, that's good enough for me. I have to admit I don't know everything about what he did though.

Here's another reference. David Boye, who helped considerably with his book on knifemaking get me started, has done some work with cast stain resistant materials, even cast cobalt alloy. Those blades show dendritic formations. They are not considered wootz or bulat.

Boye Knives

I think a cobalt razor would be a pretty cool item too.

[Kees]

Here's some more on the archeology of wootz: Home Page

[Russel Baldridge]

Wiggamore,

I believe the article I was referencing is on the website that Kees just linked in the above post, but I don't know where the article is on that site, it may be in one of the links or it may be elsewhere.

But the essence of what it said, and as Mike confirmed above, is that "traditional" wootz is not heat treated as common steels are and that process leads to different performance characteristics.

The "traditional" Wootz was steel that reached a melting temperature inside a crucible, then allowed to cool very slowly which allowed for the formation of dendrites and highly segregated carbides within the steel matrix. The resulting steel was then forged at low temperatures so as not to reach Austenitizing temperatures that would alter the carbide/dendrite features, which means that it can't be heat treated like modern steels are since that requires full Austenitization. The final blade had those super hard carbides that would be exposed by the softer steel being worn away from the cutting action and thus act like a saw.

It seems like the modern heat treatment makes the Wootz blade's edge a good deal smoother but eliminates those "traditional" characteristics in the process.

[Ditch Doc]

Here is a guy that did his dissertation on recreating wootz. Pretty awesome.
Replication of Wootz